What makes a truly Integrated Clinic?

Define Integration:
The Word: The dictionary defines integration as "an integral whole". In layman's terms integration means combining two or more pieces into a whole. In concern to your clinic, integration means the addition of various components of your practice into a combined integrated digital practice. Future Health's unique Virtual Office Suite (VOS) provides the perfect example. VOS is an integrated whole system, comprised of a variety of parts including: electronic documentation, electronic health records (EHR), scheduling, billing and patient education.

How Integration Applies to your Clinic
There are five key steps in providing your patients with the best health care possible.

  • 1) Documentation of the visit.................................................... Documentation
  • 2) Record of the visit.................................................................... Paper Records or EHR
  • 3) Bill for services rendered....................................................... Billing
  • 4) Schedule follow-up appointments...................................... Scheduling
  • 5) Educate the patient on diagnosis........................................ Patient Education

Every practice performs these five crucial steps to providing essential health care to their patients. These components are the deciding factors to maintaining a successful, profitable clinic. By performing these five components via the integrated system of VOS, your clinic can prosper in ways it never did before.

Differences in Integration and True Integration
Many advertisements casually mention the fact that their system offers integrated software. This is true in some aspects. Some of these programs might include all five key aspects of a successful clinic; however some of these are probably not as advanced as others. The various components probably share some forms of connectivity, such as the transferable documentation like the patient's name or address from the scheduling to the billing department. The only thing this type of system has actually achieved is only superficial integration. These components, barely integrated, are held together by only a few fraying threads. They lack the genuine, remarkable power obtained by the use of true integration.

 True integration, like that provided by the VOS system, involves much more complex interlacing of the clinic departments, specifically concerning the EHR.

EHR is the reason for which Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created: a fully electronic digital patient chart containing demographic information, diagnoses, visit dates, provider data, treatment codes, digital SOAP notes, X-rays, other diagnostic studies, radiology reports, records of counseling and instructions for home and self-care, and the copies of communications between provides in the case of co-care. 

VOS offers your clinic the ability to become the "Clinic of the Future". It allows for a completely paperless, integrated chiropractic office management system. VOS incorporates all the aspects of EHR digitally as well as the other four key components of your clinic combined in one unified software system. Adoption of VOS software creates a partnership with Future Health focused on delivering the finest in efficiency and profitability to your clinic. No more do you have to contact ten different agencies just to get the technical support you need. VOS offers you one line of support, one support contract and complete compatibility; the true definition of "integral whole".

A Truly Integrated Whole
Put into its simplest terms, true internal integration is the ability of your clinic to execute the five component parts of clinic management simultaneously. VOS offers you the chance to achieve all five of these components from one interface on a single digital screen. That means your clinic documentation shares complete information with billing, which shares complete data with scheduling, which is all stored automatically in your digital chart or EHR.

Any patient education that you do, whether it's instructions for in-home stretches and exercises, modifications of ADLs, or digital presentations of informed consent, are all automatically entered into the patient's EHR, coded and billed, all seamlessly. Yet the ability to share information across the five components is really just scratching the surface of integration functionality. Sharing information enables you to do case management analysis, patient progress reports, global practice analysis, treatment, billing and coding, and scheduling reminders - all in addition to avoiding the redundancy of data entry. If you're seeking deeper integration, you'll want to join with Future Health by adopting their VOS software that not only links the five key components but also offers features that allow you to excavate the abundance of information contained right within your own practice.

True integration provides you with the ability for your clinic to interact with multiple outside data sources -sEMG devices, inclinometers, algometers, MRIs, digital X-rays (DICOM), radiology reports, and other HL-7 formatted diagnostic reports. If one or all of your patients require you to import data from other clinics or external devices, true integration allows you to make it part of the five components of clinic management instantaneously and automatically.

Achieve Deeper Integration within your Clinic Today!
In the process of constructing these five components together in the VOS system, you are on your way to establishing a truly functional EHR. Every part of the EHR, patient record, diagnoses, reports, and visit data are already interconnected and integrated into your everyday clinic management. You can draw upon these components to make up the whole of your clinic, anything less and the software simply isn't true integration. As the inevitable popularity of EHR grows, the reasons to settle for less than true integration become less and less. These five components are the key to achieving success in your practice. They deserve all the attention they can get.